1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a Photo-micrographing device for shooting a microscopic images at specific intervals (time-lapse shooting) and its control method and more particularly relates to a Photo-micrographing device for displaying as a list microscopic images taken by multi-point time lapse shooting for simultaneously applying time-lapse shooting to a plurality of shooting ranges and applying desired shooting control to each microscopic image and its control method.
2. Description of the Related Art
Conventionally, as a method for observing an inspection object by a microscope, a method for shooting microscopic images at specific intervals hereinafter called “time-lapse shooting”), reproducing a series of taken images after shooting and observing the time-wise morphological change of an inspection object as moving images is used. Such a method is very effective when observing the time change of a specific inspection object, such as a live cell, existing within the microscopic view field.
Recently, when confirming the effect of a plurality of reagents on cells cultured on the same condition, when observing the time change of different cells in the same environment at the same time and the like, time-lapse shooting is sometimes applied in a plurality of shooting positions.
In such a shooting method for applying time-lapse shooting to a plurality of shooting ranges (hereinafter called “multi-point time-lapse shooting), the plurality of shooting ranges are not always located within the same microscopic view field. Often some of the shooting ranges are located out of the microscopic view field of the inspection object or some inspection objects are different.
As such a shooting method, Japanese Patent Application Publication No. 2002-277754 discloses a configuration to which multi-point time-lapse shooting can be applied by mounting an inspection object on a stage whose X, Y and Y axes can be controlled and setting in advance the positional coordinates of a plurality of shooting ranges, the exposure value of an imaging device in the position, the shooting interval of time-lapse shooting applied to the shooting ranges and the number of taken images and the like, and its method.
However, in the conventional method, since the setting of a time-lapse waiting time and the number of taken images are the same for all observation ranges, only a series of multi-point time-lapse shooting can be applied to only a plurality of inspection objects which are similarly compared and examined. In this case, even when a culturing environment is the same and there is room for the number of inspection objects mounted on the stage, an experiment for comparing time changes at different intervals or the like must be separately performed. Specifically, when the changing speed of a cell being an inspection object is slow or long changes continue, one series of shooting sequence of time-lapse shooting often takes several days to several weeks. Therefore, plural types of experiments take a lot of time.
An optimal exposure value varies due to the time change of a cell, a cell moves out of an observation range or an image becomes out of focus. When the modification of the shooting range (shooting magnification) is needed in the course of a time change, image data obtained for a long time will be wasted since time-lapse shooting continues.
Furthermore, even after a cell dies or a morphological change converges, the set number of images are taken. Therefore, a huge image file wastes a storage memory capacity.